


While You Were Sleeping

by elisi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 2020 is a dumpster fire of a year, Awake The Snake, BLM, Episode: Good Omens: Lockdown, Gen, Post-Episode: Good Omens: Lockdown, So much has happened, how do I tag this?, keep fighting the good fight, quite serious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25020625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisi/pseuds/elisi
Summary: Crowley wakes up. The months he missed weren't boring. Quite the opposite...
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 48
Collections: AwakeTheSnake





	While You Were Sleeping

**Author's Note:**

> So, fandom reminded me that Crowley set his alarm clock for July, and today is the 1st of July! (As far as I can tell people seem to refer to this as 'Awake the Snake!')
> 
> Which made my head spin because... when did he go to sleep? Wasn't it, like, March? But no, it was the 1st of May. It feels like forever ago. 
> 
> And I realised I couldn't let today pass without doing SOMETHING, so bashed out a draft for this ficlet in my lunch break, and got Promethia to give it a swift once-over after work and... here we are.
> 
> The title is rather ironic. This is not romantic.

Once Crowley had managed to wake up enough to turn off the alarm, he forced himself to sit up and did his damnedest to remember what the world situation had been like before he went to sleep.

He had been bored. 

Transcendentally bored.

Bored because, because…

His brain searched for a while, groping around in the fuzzy dark recesses of his mind, before hitting on the answer: Pandemic!

Ooooh yes. Pandemic, everything in lockdown, and Aziraphale baking cakes and refusing to break the rules.

He raised his arms, cracked his spine, and did his best to shake himself more awake. Things should be better now, surely? Humans nowadays were (to Crowley's immense relief) far more aware of how diseases spread and had put lots of measures in place to stop the outbreak in its tracks. This would not be another 14th Century, oh no. Not even another Spanish flu.

Once he had showered and dressed (he quite liked human customs and these were good for waking up more fully), he sat down to call his angel.

The phone rang half a dozen times before Aziraphale answered, a little out of breath.

“Angel!” He couldn’t stop the grin that was forming. “How are you?”

“ _Crowley_!” The sheer joy his name caused practically vibrated down the phone line, and Crowley felt like curling up like a snake in the sun. “How _are_ you, dear? Is it… goodness, it must be the first of July? When did you go to sleep, it feels like…”

Aziraphale’s voice trailed off, and Crowley replied.

“First of May. Two months ago. Guess you’ll have baked a mountain of cakes…”

“Cakes?” the angel asked, surprised. “Why would I- Oh. Oh _yes_. I _did_ bake a lot of cakes back then.” He sounded as if Crowley was referring to something that had happened centuries ago. “How quiet everything was…”

His voice trailed off again, and Crowley frowned.

“What do you mean? I thought everyone would have been sitting on their backsides like good little citizens — ‘staying at home, protecting the NHS and saving lives’.”

(Hell of a slogan, it still just rolled off his tongue.)

“Oh. Um. The whole Dominic Cummings fiasco must have been after you went to sleep? Gosh. Where do I start…”

“Boris’ little rat-faced Wormtongue? What’d he do this time?”

“Not important. Well it _is_ , but… There are far more important things. Oh dear, and I have a zoom meeting in a couple of minutes…”

Crowley blinked. Slowly. Clearly the brain reboot hadn’t been completed yet.

“You have a zoom meeting?”

“Oh yes, I’m catching up with these _lovely_ young people I met at the Black Trans Lives Matters march on Saturday.”

Crowley began to suspect that he was still dreaming.

“ _You_ went on a march? Hang on wait — there are _marches_? They got on top of the virus then?”

A sigh from the other end.

“No, the numbers are still rather bad. _Here_ , I mean. Most other places they’re down — New Zealand has done _fantastically_ well for example! Although America and Brazil…” The angel didn’t finish whatever he was about to say. “Anyway, yes, there are _wonderful_ protest marches, everyone is _very_ conscientious and wearing masks, and they toppled Colston’s statue in Bristol, it was all very exciting!”

“Protest marches? For… Black Lives Matters? Isn’t that an American thing?”

“Well it… it sort of went global?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Crowley tried to formulate a response.

“Angel. Stop. None of this makes sense. Can you just _explain_? People toppling statues, has there been a _revolution_?”

A pause, and when he finally spoke Aziraphale’s voice was much too quiet.

“No, not as such. Things have just _changed_. It’s not easy to… I mean, I am not sure where to start.” He took a deep breath. “Go — go on the internet machine and look up George Floyd. I’ll be over as soon as my meeting is over.”

“Oh so _that’s_ OK?” 

"Oh yes, you can be in my ‘bubble’. And also single households are now allowed to visit another single households. I’ll see you soon…” 

A beat. Then: 

“Crowley… it’s another one of _those_ years.” 

He heard all the unsaid things between the lines, and nodded. 

“Right. See you angel."

(Aziraphale put down the phone and studied it in silence for a long while. He felt like a coward, but he couldn’t _explain_ … Then he sighed, and turned on his computer, which miraculously — and much to its own surprise — could run zoom, despite the fact that it was over 30 years old.) 

Crowley just sat looking at his phone for a moment, unsure what had happened. 

Then he opened up google, typed in George Floyd, and didn’t move for a long, long time. 

***

An hour later there was a knock on the door.

Crowley stirred, and put down the phone. Outside stood Aziraphale with a great many cakes. As well as a few bottles of wine.

“I thought you would probably need a little fortification,” he said as he walked into the flat. “How are you doing?”

Crowley blinked at him.

“I don’t know.”

Aziraphale carefully set down all the provisions, a ghost of a smile on his face.

“Welcome to July.”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what's allowed in notes? But support Black Trans Lives!! <3


End file.
